Chasing Shadows
by graceonastring
Summary: All they wanted to do was take care of the ghost that killed their friend. They had no idea that would lead to roads untraveled. Currently looking for a beta reader! Send me an ask on my tumblr (peacewhendone.) with your username and links to stories you've beta'd if you're interested.
1. Chapter 1

**Chasing Shadows**  
Chapter 1: Wide Awake

**Author's Notes:**

Please note that the first chapter of Chasing Shadows is actually the final chapter of the novel _Carved in Flesh_ by Tim Waggoner. The novel takes place between 7.12 Time After Time and 7.13 The Slice Girls. Chasing Shadows takes place immediately after _Carved in Flesh_, but after that it diverges from the canon.

Eric Kripke created the world of _Supernatural,_ while Tim and I just get to "play in his sandbox". Hopefully Tim won't mind me playing in his!

The title of this story comes from the song Chasing Shadows by Kansas. The title of this chapter comes from the song "Wide Awake" by Audioslave, echoing one of Sam's lines in this chapter.

* * *

"I'm getting tired of digging graves," Dean said.

"Me, too."

The crapmobile cruised through the night on I-70, heading west, Dean behind the wheel, Sam riding shotgun.

_After they'd "disassembled" Bekah's body, they'd burned the parts and buried them separately in the Luss's back yard. When that chore was finished, they buried Marshall's remains as well. The sun had long dropped below the horizon by that point, and Catherine invited them in for a drink. They accepted, feeling more than a little awkward. As they stood in her kitchen and drank tap water, she thanked them for their help._

_"__What am I going to do now?"__ Catherine had asked. "____I've done terrible things. I never asked where Conrad found the limbs and organs I needed, but I knew where they came from - especially the freshest ones. And the experiment that got loose, the dog... it killed people. Those deaths are on my hands, too. I may not have taken any lives directly, but I'm just as responsible as if I had. I don't even have Dippel's excuse of being manipulated by a dark goddess. I was just a sad, lonely woman who missed her family. I'd go to the police and turn myself in, but what good would it do? No one would believe my story."_

_The only physical evidence left was her homemade lab in the basement. She could lead the cops to the remains of Marshall and Bekah, but there was a chance that, like Frankenmutt and the Double-Header, they'd decay to nothing soon. Besides, she didn't want anyone disturbing Bekah's various graves, just in case doing so somehow freed Hel. They had no idea if the goddess's spirit had returned to the realm it had come from - Sniffleham or something like that; Dean couldn't remember - but none of them wanted to take any chances._

_"__Start your practice back up,"__ Sam had suggested. "____Return to helping people. Isn't that why you became a doctor in the first place? Besides, what better way to fight death than by preserving life?"_

_Catherine had thought for a moment. "____I think... I think maybe Marshall and Bekah would like that. But should I? Is redemption even possible?"_

_Dean had taken that one. "__Doc, if we didn't believe it is, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning."_

"Too bad the Lapis Occultus was destroyed," Sam said. "I think it might have been another name for the Philosopher's Stone, in which case it could've made a powerful weapon to use against Dick Roman."

Dean shrugged. "No use crying over shattered mystical artifacts. I'm glad to see you're feeling better, though. You finally manage to fight off that infection?"

Sam smiled. "Looks like it." He crossed his leg and pulled up the cuff of his pants. "See? No more weird black veins."

"That's a relief. We'll save a ton of money on coffee." Dean paused before asking his next question. "You... seeing things?"

Sam tugged his pants cuff back down. "You mean like a strange shadow man? Don't worry. I don't think I'm going to see him anymore."

Something about Sam's tone made Dean think he was missing something, but he decided to let it go. "You think the doc is going to be okay?"

"I don't know. We were raised in this life, and the stuff we go through still messes us up. I can't imagine how much worse it is for a normal person. But if she starts seeing patients again, surrounds herself with life instead of brooding on death, I think she stands a chance."

"In our business, sometimes a chance is all you need."

They drove in silence for a while. Dean almost turned on the radio, but he decided against it. He didn't feel like music just then.

* * *

After a time, Sam said, "I've been thinking."

"There's a shocker," Dean said.

"Remember those dreams I had about Trish?"

"Yeah."

"It occurred to me that we never did anything about the Rifleman."

Dean did some quick mental calculating. "It'll only take thirty-five or forty hours to get to Washington State from here, assuming we drive straight through."

"I'm wide awake," Sam said, smiling.

Dean sniffed the air and caught a whiff of stink coming from the trunk. "Maybe we should stop at a Laundromat and wash our funkified clothes first."

"Let's find a Dumpster to toss them into, and buy more when we get to Washington."

"Sounds like a plan."

The brothers continued traveling through the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Chasing Shadows

Chapter 2: Hero of the Day

The stars danced in the sky, a thousand glittering points of light. It felt like the entire universe was waiting for something, just holding it's breath. Time had stopped, while Fate and Destiny gaped as their sister stared at the glowing lifethread held in her hand.

On Earth, a storm gathered in the sky over Muncie, Indiana. Great billowing clouds of black and gray lit up with lightning, while thunder roared loud enough to set off car alarms. When the universe released it's breath, the smell of ozone filled the air as the brightest ray of lightning yet struck the middle of a field. It turned the grass black in it's wake, and started a fire that expanded to just over twelve feet before creating a circle. At the same time that the lightning hit the ground, a figure with pale skin and wings of gold and honey and caramel appeared out of nowhere. As the fire was put out by the rain and the storm raged on, smoke curled into the air from the body.

The figure didn't move for a few minutes. When it did, it's wings started trembling, feathers tossing back and forth in the heavy wind. Not long after, the arms started moving, just far enough to push up against the ground. Honey-gold eyes blinked open, rain plastering dirty-blond hair against the man's head. After a few moments, his trembling stopped and his wings spread themselves out in a way to keep the rain off his body. Going from sitting to crouching, and then forcing his upper body off the ground to stand, he surveyed the area he was in. There was a depreciated motel not far away. It looked like it had been abandoned for decades, even though he knew it had been open for business a year ago.

He recognized it, of course – it was where he had died.

"Well," the man said, voice hoarse, "this is unexpected." Raising his head to look at the sky, he twisted his features into a frown. "Couldn't you have done something less cheesy than lightning?! Maybe a hurricane or a freaking tsunami or even just a regular old tornado?!" he yelled. Sighing, he glared one more moment at the clouds, knowing there'd be no answer – whoever went all _The Walking Dead_ on him clearly did not want to make their involvement known.

He scowled, looking down at his body. He wasn't a _damn Winchester_! He wasn't Castiel either; why did their penchant for dying and coming back seem to have settled on him? It was a curse, he was sure – something he picked up during one of those numerous Groundhog Days. He was going to find them, and demand they _fix this_. He didn't _want_ to be alive, dammit!

With a snap of his fingers, the man was gone; all he left behind was ash on the ground and the sound of powerful wings in the night air. A single feather floated in the air, before it too turned to ash and was carried away by the wind as the storm slowly started to dissipate.

"Yo, Sammy! Wake up, we're here." Dean shoved his little brother, which got him a bitchface as Sam startled awake, knocking his head against the car window.

"You do know you don't have to be such an ass to wake me up, right?" Sam asked, rubbing a hand over where he'd hit his head. He was going to need an aspirin – and really, didn't he hit his head often enough on hunts?

"But then how would I entertain myself?"

Bickering and teasing, the boys got their bags out of the trunk. Dean made Sammy carry the bag of weapons while he strode to the door and unlocked it, dumping his bag of clothes on the bed closest to the door before detouring to the bathroom and locking himself in.

Sam sighed, shutting the door and tossing his duffel on the other bed before setting the bag of weapons on Dean's bed; he could clean them himself, if he wanted to be a jerk. Sam plopped down in one of the chairs at the dining table, dragging his laptop bag up on top of it.

It had been a long couple of weeks. Their last case had been in Brennan, Ohio, and it had dug up unpleasant memories. Those memories centered around a thirteen-year-old girl named Trish and a haunted house in Washington State. Before that, they'd been in Canton, Ohio – where Dean got teleported back to 1944 by the God of Time (but he got to hang out with Eliot Ness, one of The Untouchables – a group of men working for the Bureau of Prohibition to take down Al Capone, so Sam knew Dean'd a great time; _The Untouchables_ was one of his favorite movies, and finding out Eliot Ness was a hunter had given Dean a bit of a fangirl attitude). Meanwhile, Sam had worked with Sheriff Jody Mills to figure things out on their side. He'd been grateful to her for that; she'd helped them out many times, and he didn't want that connection – one made through Bobby – to just disappear.

Still, he'd been glad when Dean had gotten back.

Shaking himself out of a stupor as he heard Dean start the shower, Sam took his laptop out of the bag and set it up, looking around for just a moment before finding a suitable outlet. As he booted it up, he ran his hands over his face. He missed Bobby... and Cas. He knew Dean did, too. He was also exhausted; he wanted to pass out for an entire night rather than the three or four hours a night they were used to getting.

(_If he was completely honest with himself, he kinda missed one other angel as well_.)

Sighing, Sam ran a hand through his hair. When Dean got out of the shower, he'd already jumped into research on the Rifleman.

"Hey," Dean said as he walked by in a towel, going for his duffel bag, "got anything yet?"

"No, not yet. I'm looking up news articles on Trish and then I'll go back further, try to get some details we may not have heard of," Sam responded absently.

His only answer was a sudden stillness as Dean paused in pulling on his clothes. Before Sam really registered it, he'd finished pulling on a pair of jeans. Once he'd dragged on an heather gray t-shirt, he shrugged into a red button-up before sitting down on the bed to pull on socks and shoes. "Well, we were there, and Trish told us what happened with the Rifleman," Dean said into the silence.

Sam's eyes slid over to Dean. John had taken out his anger about that weekend more on Dean then he did on his youngest son; probably because it'd been a dangerous stunt to pull with an eleven-year-old brother along that Dean had been charged with protecting since he was six-months-old. "Yeah, but we were just kids; the investigation happened long after we'd already taken off, and Trish could have left out some details on the lore."

"Well, it's not a bad place to start from, at least," Dean said. "I'm gonna go grab dinner – need anything?"

"Nah, I'm good. Just bring me back a salad."

"Jesus Sammy, don't you want something besides rabbit food?" complained Dean, throwing a sock at his brother's head and grabbing his jacket.

Which was when Sam pulled out the puppy dog eyes.

"Damnit, Sam – okay, fine, I'll get you your damn salad." With that said, Dean stalked out, not seeing the smirk take over Sam's face.

At the door to the Impala, Dean hesitated, looking up at the sky. "Cas... I don't know where you are, or if you've got your ears on, but... man, if you _are_ somewhere and can. You need to get here, Cas. We're worried. Call me. Just let us know you're okay."

Somewhere in Severance, Colorado, over a thousand miles from Walla Walla, Washington to the west and more than two thousand miles to Muncie, Indiana in the east, a black haired man woke, snapping his eyes open as he sat up in bed. He blinked, slowly, his vision blurry from sleep. He had no idea what woke him; he didn't need to go to the bathroom, his wife was breathing deeply next to him, and he hadn't had a nightmare in weeks. The house creaked around him, random but normal noises as the house settled and wind blew against it. So what had woken him?

Carefully getting out of bed, the man wandered over to the bedroom window, reaching with one hand to pull back the curtains and look at the sky. There were no clouds, so it wasn't about to start storming like the wind had made him think. He swore to himself that he could hear – or was it feel? - someone calling to him. He could just barely make out a voice, and what sounded like a name – but that was all. He couldn't understand the name, or recognize the voice.

Whatever it was, it made him uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't begin to explain.

With Dean gone for a while, Sam lost himself in the research. When he came across the obituaries for Trish and her father, Walter, he took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, just staring at her picture and remembering how beautiful she had been. Back then, she'd been two years older than him and two years younger than Dean. Of course, Dean was the one she made eyes at. Or she had, before everything went to hell in a hand basket.

_"Have you guys ever done it?"  
_

_Sam's cheeks burned, and he had to swallow before he could talk. "Excuse me?"_

_Trish rolled her eyes, but she smiled as she did so. "Gone hunting, I mean. Has your dad ever taken you?"_

_Sam was about to say no, but Dean kicked him in the leg. The three of them had been sitting at the kitchen table for the last hour playing euchre, although Sam had watched Trish more than the cards. During those rare moments when Sam wasn't looking at Trish, he'd been checking on his brother to see if he was watching her, too. Of course he was. Trish was smart, funny, beautiful, with an air of sadness about her that Sam found irresistible. He was sure Dean felt the same way. How could he not? Most of the time Sam didn't mind being the younger brother, but every once in a while, he caught Trish looking at Dean in a way she didn't look at him, _

_and he wished he was the oldest._

_"Sure we have," Dean said. "Lots of times."_

_Sam gave his brother a look, but he didn't say anything. Partly because he didn't want to make Dean mad, but mostly because he didn't want to look like a whiny little kid in front of Trish. He didn't like lying to her, but - he rationalized - he wasn't really. Dean was. Keeping your mouth shut wasn't the same as lying, was it? But if that was the case, then why did he feel so lousy about it?_

_"That's so cool!" Trish glanced over her shoulder at the basement door behind them. Even though it was closed, and had been the entire time they'd been playing, the nervous way she looked at it made Sam think she half expected her father to be standing there listening. _

_Walter's "workshop," as he called it, was set up in the basement, and he'd been working down there for the last couple hours, forging whatever documents his hunter clientele needed. She turned back to them._

_"Dad hates it whenever I ask anything about hunting." She lowered her voice, even though there was no way her dad could have heard her from down in the basement. "My uncle was a hunter. He got killed by a werewolf."_

_"Werewolves are bad-ass," Dean said, almost admiringly. Then he looked at Trish, as if just realizing what he'd said. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I wasn't thinking."_

_"What else is new?" Sam said with a smirk. He hoped to score a couple points with Trish by getting a dig in, but when Dean kicked him in the leg again - much harder this time - he let out an ow! of pain, and he figured that cost him whatever coolness points he might have gained._

_Trish lowered her gaze to the tabletop. "It was the same werewolf that killed my mom."  
_

_"Damn," Dean said. "I'm really sorry."  
_

_"Me, too," Sam hurried to say, although he wasn't sure exactly what he was apologizing for. It just felt like the right thing to do.  
_

_Trish kept laying down cards as she spoke, and although Sam felt funny continuing to play the game considering the topic of conversation, he kept on, as did Dean._

_"One summer my family was on a camping trip. I was only nine. My uncle Ryan - my mom's brother - came along. He'd just gotten divorced from my aunt and was depressed. My parents thought the camping trip might help him get away, clear his head a little, you know?"_

_Sam didn't know, not exactly, but he nodded anyway, as did Dean, who probably did really know - or at least had a better idea of what Trish was talking about._

_"We went on a night hike. Dad hoped we'd see some bats, maybe spot some owls. Mom and Uncle Ryan came along, but before long he said he wasn't feeling good and was going to head back to camp and turn in. He left, and after a couple minutes, Mom decided to go back, too. She didn't say anything, but I figure she was worried that he planned to crawl into his tent and drink himself blind. Dad wanted all of us to go back, but Mom told him that it would be a shame for me to miss out on getting to experience the woods at night. Truth was, she probably wanted to keep me away from camp in case Ryan got upset with her for checking up on him and started yelling or something. Dad wasn't worried about Mom finding her way back to camp on her own in the dark. They were both experienced campers and hikers, and they could handle themselves in the wild just fine. Besides, there was a full moon that night, so there was plenty of light to see by."_

_She glanced at the basement door once again, as if reassuring herself that her father wasn't going to open it any moment and walk through. After the better part of a minute passed, she resumed her story, continuing to play euchre as she spoke._

_"I don't know how much longer Dad and I kept hiking. Half an hour, maybe. Whatever it was, it was long enough. When we got back to camp, we found..." She trailed off and looked at the cards remaining in her hand, frowning as if she didn't remember what they were for. "You know how in horror movies people can always hear the monster attack someone in the woods, no matter how far away they are? We didn't hear anything at all. No growls or snarls. No screams. Only crickets chirping and night birds singing, as if everything was normal. Dad figures Uncle Ryan tried to fight off the werewolf and protect Mom, but even though he had a rifle with him, he never got off a shot. The damned thing was too fast. Not that it would've mattered, since he didn't have silver bullets. When the werewolf finished with him, it went after Mom. She tried to run, but she didn't get far from camp before it caught up to her and took her down. She ran in the opposite direction from where Dad and I were. She was trying to lead the werewolf away from us."_

_She stared at the cards for another moment before tossing them onto the table. A second later, Dean did the same, and Sam followed his brother's lead._

_"What happened to the werewolf?" Dean asked._

_"A couple hunters - your kind of hunters, not the regular kind - had been on its trail for several weeks. They finally tracked it down and killed it before dawn. Stabbed it in the heart with a silver blade. If they'd only found it a few hours earlier..."_

_None of them spoke for several moments. It was Dean who eventually broke the silence._

_"It was your aunt, wasn't it?" he said. "The werewolf, I mean."_

_Trish nodded. "The hunters found us sometime after sunrise. We were still in the camp, both of us in shock. From what they told us, when people change into werewolves they become mindless animals, filled with nothing but hunger, hate, and rage. But some unconscious part of them is driven to prey on those they view as a threat, or who they have some kind of grudge against." She forced a smile. "My aunt and uncle didn't exactly have an amicable divorce." Her smile faded. "I'm thirsty. Do you guys want a drink?"_

_The brother shook their heads. Trish got up from the table, went to the sink, filled a glass with tap water, and drank it straight down. She then put the empty glass in the sink and leaned on the counter, arms crossed as she continued her story._

_"Dad didn't believe the hunters at first. Who would? But they eventually convinced him that what they claimed was true, and they advised him not to say anything about werewolves when he reported the deaths. He agreed and the hunters brought my aunt's body to our camp and... made it look like she was attacked by an animal, too. Dad and I stayed away while they did it. After what had happened to Mom and Ryan, it was the last thing either of us wanted to witness. Then the hunters wished us good luck and left. We got in our pickup and Dad drove us to town to report what had happened."_

_"The next several days were pretty awful, as you might imagine. Dad told the police that my aunt had come along on the camping trip as a last-ditch effort to fix their marriage. He told them he'd taken me on a hike before dawn so we could watch the sunrise together while the others slept. He said that everyone was dead when we got back, and so we jumped in the pickup and raced to town. The police suspected my dad of committing the murders at first, and I think they might've continued if I hadn't backed up his story. After we'd buried everyone, the hunters stopped by our home to see how we were doing. Dad asked them dozens of questions about what it was like to be a hunter, how many of the monsters everyone thought were pretend were actually real, and how he could become a hunter, too. But even filled with sorrow and anger as he was, it was obvious to the hunters that my dad was too gentle a man to follow in their footsteps. As Dad taught art at a local college, that gave the hunters an idea, though. They said that in their line of work they often needed official-looking documents and identification. They didn't use the word counterfeit, maybe because I'd refused to leave Dad's side since the murders and they didn't want to say anything in front of me that made them look like criminals. They said they had a hard time finding anyone to make such documents, let alone someone who could do it right. That's how Dad started working in, as he calls it, 'hunter support.'"_

_After she was finished, she swallowed. "I'm still so thirsty. Guess I talked a lot, huh?" She turned around and refilled her water glass._

_Sam felt sorry for Trish, but he didn't know what to say or do. His own mother had died when Sam was a baby, so he felt sympathy for Trish's loss, but he couldn't say that he shared it, exactly. He'd never gotten the chance to know his mom, but Trish had been nine when hers had died. Because of that, her mom's death must have hit her so much harder than he could imagine. In a weird way, though, he was jealous of her. At least she'd had nine years with her mom. She had photos of the two of them together, maybe even videos. If so, she'd always be able to watch them and know what her mother's voice sounded like, how she moved, how she smiled. Trish had memories of her mom. He didn't have any of his, not a single one._

Sam huffed out a breath, chastising himself for getting lost in yet another memory when he had work to do. He hunched back over his computer and continued researching, waiting for his salad and the beer he knew Dean would be picking up.


	3. Chapter 3

Chasing Shadows

Chapter 3: Two Cents Worth

(Title from a song by Kansas)

Mackey wandered around his home, checking to make sure all the traps were in place. His house was a hunter's fortress; it stood in a forest just outside of Avery Island, Louisiana. He had picked Avery Island for one specific reason: he needed a stronghold, a base of operations, somewhere he could go when the heat got turned up too high – and what better stronghold than one built on top of a solid rock salt deposit? It also helped that the town (it wasn't actually an island, no matter it's name) had a low population count, for all it's popularity as the Birthplace of Tabasco. That kept the potential civilian casualties from being too horrible if something supernatural followed him home after a hunt.

Bobby and Rufus had helped him design and build the place seven or eight years before, while the Winchesters were separated; one at Stanford, the other off hunting with their dad. Before anything else, they had cleared out enough trees to make a circle 60 feet in diameter; just inside the circle, they dug four feet into the ground and laid a ring of iron around the perimeter, which they connected to a system of underground water pipes (also iron) that ran off a reservoir which they blessed. Sprinklers were put into the ground, connecting into the network of iron pipes; if a demon did get past the iron and salt, the sprinklers could be flipped on to coat the area in holy water. The iron also wouldn't rust as long as holy water was run through it at least twice a year. That was fine with Mackey; holy water made the ground more fertile, so outside of the winter months, the entire circle would be a field of lush green grass and wildflowers.

The trees they cut down were then made into lumber to use in the building of the house. Every board had a sigil for protection cut into it. Using a backhoe, they dug out a space in the middle of the clearing into a basement. They mixed concrete with salt, and built walls with that as added protection, so the entire basement could act like Bobby's panic room. They also laid the floor with concrete, and covered it with carpet for comfort. The ceiling they put together with six-inch thick sheets of iron; even if the rest of the house burned, the basement would be saved. As such, Mackey's most prized possessions – his research and lore books, an office with a computer and printer, and all of his weapons – were down there, along with a bedroom, a full-sized bath, a kitchen and a living area with a TV. All of the water that ran through the house came from the reservoir of holy water, which was, in turn, pulled from a nearby lake. Fire sprinklers situated in the ceiling in every single room also pulled water from the reservoir when turned on. The fireplace grate, placed three inches down into the top of the chimney, was a four inch slab of iron, which had been painted with a mixture of holy water and salt; the water dried on the iron, soaked into the salt, and somehow glued the salt to the iron. No demon smoke could enter the chimney.

For the inside walls of the house, salt was mixed with drywall. On the outside of the house, salt was mixed into the paints and stains they used. Every pipe, every doorknob, every air vent, every cabinet pull, every nail, every faucet, everything that could was made out of pure silver or iron. Silver wind chimes were hung on each porch; it was said the clinking of silver hurt werewolves' ears, though that hadn't been proven to Bobby's or Mackey's satisfaction back then. Each porch was also screened in; on the outside of the screens, thin silver wires met and crisscrossed. A layer of mesh followed (to keep out bugs, but let in a breeze), followed by a layer of thin iron wires done in the same pattern as the silver ones. The same thing was repeated for every window of the house, and all of the glass used in the windows was bullet proof. The only interior door for the basement was heavy iron, hidden behind a sheet of drywall, which had a bookcase in front of it; to get inside the basement, all one had to do was flip up a light switch; this turned on a light in the stairway down to the basement, and also moved the bookcase and drywall away from the door. If needed, all you had to do was push the iron door closed and the wall and bookcase would move back into their places, while still leaving the light on.

Luckily, Mackey had a hefty sum of money left from his parents and his grandparents. His great-granddad on his mom's side, Paul, had been a member of the Campbell family, who stopped hunting when he got married. Knowing the dangers, he set up savings accounts to provide for his family. Every generation that followed was encouraged to do the same. Even though Paul kept any knowledge of the supernatural away from his family (save his wife, Patricia), he knew there was always a possibility something could happen and one of the members of the family would turn into a hunter. That had happened with Mackey, when his parents had been killed by vampires not long after his grandparents were killed by the same vamps. Bobby and Rufus had been investigating his grandparent's deaths, which was how they met Mackey. They even trained him; Bobby taught him about spells, the uses behind herbs, lore and how to research cases; Rufus taught him weapons, how to fight hand to hand, and generally just survive encounters with almost anything. Bobby taught him the knowledge he needed; Rufus taught him how to implement it.

Bobby didn't know it, but he had spent some of that money left for him on books for the grouchy old man's library over the years. Every year at Christmas, he sent Rufus two bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue. It was a thank you, and a just because; without their help and connections, that house would've cost a lot more to build, and taken much longer. It also helped that Mackey had been a construction worker before becoming a hunter.

The garage they made out of sheets of steel, reinforced with iron on the inside. In the ground of the garage, they dug out what would have been, at one point in time, called a storage room or pantry. Instead of freshly harvested vegetables for the winter months, though, they put in weapons and tools of every hunter's arsenal. It was, strictly speaking, a weapons cache. In between the house and the garage, Mackey dug himself an herb garden, with a sprinkler system that was also tied into the holy water reservoir. This system, though, was on a timer and would automatically come on every Thursday.

To someone with supernatural abilities, the entire area glowed with protection and strength. It was impossible for anything that wasn't human to get inside, or even close.

The only person allowed there at all times was Wendy. Mackey had saved her from a wendigo in Northern Minnesota after Bobby put him on the case. Her entire family had been killed by the wendigo, and she had nowhere to go; nor would her PTSD allow her to go back to a normal life. Mackey had ended up temporarily letting her stay at his home base, but after having her around for a year, no one mentioned her ever going her own way again. She had made herself useful in that past year, and Mackey had been able to help her get past some of the trauma she'd suffered. The second year she was there, she talked him into building a greenhouse over the garden so they'd always have fresh herbs. He used the same bulletproof glass, iron and silver that he'd used in the other areas of his little compound, and even added holy water misters three feet below the roof of the house so the plants would get a small amount of water at all times during the hot summer days (it also helped bring down the humidity level, which was a comfort to the plants and the humans who spent time in the greenhouse – Wendy never really got used to the differences in weather between Minnesota and Louisiana). He also dug another weapons cache in a corner of the greenhouse, and filled it with weapons he taught Wendy to use; if something attacked when she was in there, he wanted her to have what she needed on hand, and not have to run to the house or garage before being able to protect herself. The year after the greenhouse was built, she started selling excess herbs to other hunters and brought in a tidy sum of money. She refused to live on his charity anymore, and needed something to do; he didn't argue with her about it. She needed to be independent, just in case something ever happened to him.

After checking all the flips and switches for the holy water sprinklers to ensure they worked, and replenishing weapons and medical supplies in the weapons caches, the bathrooms and the basement, Mackey wandered over to where Wendy was painting Enochian protection sigils against angels in holy oil on the walls outside the house.

"Hey," he greeted, coming to a stop at the bottom of her ladder, "how's it going?"

Wendy grinned down at him, brushing a wavy lock of black hair behind her ear. "I've only got this side of the house left, but we still have to do the garage."

"I'll get started on the garage, but I need you to come help me when you get done with the house; there's no telling when this guy will get here, and I want all our protections in place when he does," Mackey responded.

"Okay. Who is he, anyway?" Wendy inquired, carefully painting another sigil. By now she'd drawn the sigils so often she no longer needed to look at the printouts of emails Bobby had sent to Mackey, so the work was going much faster. She was glad of it; her arms were starting to ache.

"I'm not sure. His name is Emmanuel, and he claims to be a healer. After that preacher up in Nebraska, I just want to see if he's the real deal or if his... ability is ill-gotten goods. If it's not, he could be an amazing ally to us hunters."

Wendy climbed down the ladder and waited while Mackey moved it six feet away, before climbing back up and starting another sigil. "Why bring him here, though? Why not just track him down and follow him?"

"I've tried," Mackey said as he braced the bottom of the ladder. "He moves around so much, and so soon, that by the time I get wind he's in one place he's moved on to the next. He doesn't even stick around his own home for very long. But if he gets here, and can't heal my eye, it'll be an easy way to figure out what he is, exactly."

The two were quiet for awhile. Wendy had been trying to hide it, but she was skittish about Mackey bringing someone to their home who could be dangerous. Mackey squinted at his watch before gently pushing away from the ladder.

"I'll get started on the garage."

Five hours later, Mackey and Wendy lounged on the front porch enjoying the late afternoon breeze. They'd finished the warding on the garage before lining doorways and windows in the house with salt; Mackey did it mainly for Wendy's benefit, and had agreed not to let Emmanuel inside the house until he knew more about the other man's abilities and purpose. Wendy would stay inside, watching from a window, and armed with a shotgun, her custom sets of Colt pistols, and a rifle; the rifle was packed with salt rounds, while the Winchester shotgun had regular bullets with devil's traps engraved on them. One of her pistols held iron bullets, the other silver. She would also have her pure silver dagger, a gift that Bobby had given her the Christmas following her family's murder. She'd be as protected as possible, and be able to help him if, somehow, Emmanuel was something evil that could pass by all the iron and salt and tried to go after Mackey. He'd be armed as well, but secretly; a pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans, silver flask of holy water in his inside jacket pocket (which, when touched to the skin of any creature with a weakness to silver, would burn them if the water wouldn't), and daggers strapped to each ankle.

They had both showered and eaten, and were nursing beers while they waited for their guest. Finally, about twenty minutes after they came out onto the porch, they heard a car coming up the drive. Twisting in her seat, Wendy saw headlights through the trees. "That must be him."

"Must be. Here, take the bottles inside; and be careful. I don't want him to know anyone else is here until I say so." Mackey said, handing his beer to Wendy. She grabbed it and hurried inside, wanting to be in place in the window, hidden from sight, before Emmanuel got out of the car. Mackey let himself out of the porch, letting the door slam shut behind him, and stood at the top of the driveway as Emmanuel parked his black car. He kept his stance calm, relaxed; he didn't want to alert Emmanuel to anything if he wasn't on the up-and-up.

"Are you Mackey?" the man asked, shutting the door to his car as he walked over to where Mackey stood.

"Yes sir I am," Mackey responded, holding out a hand for Emmanuel to shake, "thank you for coming. Can I get you anything to drink?"

Shaking Mackey's hand, Emmanuel shook his head. "No, thank you; I stopped in town and had dinner. Is there somewhere we can sit?"

"Sure, right over here." Mackey turned and led the other man to a small outdoor table, where Wendy had set up a cooler of bottle water and beer. He took the seat farthest from the house, which left Emmanuel with the one that kept his back to the house so he couldn't see Wendy in the window.

"My wife said you told her about your blindness," Emmanuel started, motioning to Mackey's right eye. "How did that happen?"

"I used to be a construction worker; someone thought it would be funny to splash my face with chemicals," Mackey lied smoothly. In truth, the vampires that killed his parents had been the ones to blind him.

"I see. And the doctors said there was nothing they could do?"

"Right. They said because of the nature of the burns, there was so much damage that all that could be done was to replace the eye completely; I've been on the waiting list five years," Mackey explained.

Emmanuel frowned. "Hmm. If you are applicable to it, I have nothing against trying to heal you; and while my success rate has been decent, it doesn't happen every time."

"I understand, your wife told me when I went to see her. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I'd like to try."

Emmanuel nodded and gave a small smile. "Okay, then. Could you move your chair over here, closer to me? I must touch your eye to heal it."

Mackey stood and moved his chair, setting it back down on the side of Emmanuel that wouldn't block Wendy's view of him. Emmanuel turned sideways in his seat as Mackey sat back down, and raised one hand before hesitating. "I need you to close your eyes. After you do, I will place one hand on your right eye; when the healing begins you may feel a strange sensation. You must keep your eyes closed until I tell you otherwise."

Mackey took a deep breathe and nodded, closing his eyes. "I understand." His hands rested lightly in his lap, ready to move quickly if the healer made any sort of move he didn't like. Emmanuel lifted a hand and covered Mackey's right eye.

Nothing happened for several moments; finally, Mackey started to feel a pressure, for lack of a better term, centered in his eye but expanding to cover the whole right side of his face. He gripped his hands together, fighting to keep his eyes closed and his body still. He did not like this sensation; it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Whatever power this man had, it was definitely supernatural.

After about ten minutes, Emmanuel gasped, "you can open your eyes." He fell back in his chair, sweating profusely.

Mackey's eyes flew open. For a moment, his vision was off-balance; his left eye was normal, but his right... everything was blurry. He blinked a few times, and every time he did, his right eye cleared up until he could see just as well with it as he did the left. He stared at Emmanuel, a look of disbelief and shock on his face.

Emmanuel caught his look and chuckled weakly. "It may take some time to get used to having two working eyes again."

"Emmanuel..." Mackey breathed, looking all around his compound. He saw Wendy put her hands over her mouth as his gaze flickered by the window, before landing back on the man in front of him. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Emmanuel offered a smile. "Would it be too much trouble to ask for a glass of water?"

"No, of course not; I've got some bottled right here, if that's okay?" Receiving a nod in response, Mackey grabbed the cooler and pulled out a water and a beer, handing the water to the other before popping the cap off his beer. He couldn't stop looking around. Everything looked different, seen through two eyes.

"Thank you," Emmanuel said after he had taken a drink. "How does it feel?"

Mackey shook his head. "There are no words." Lounging back in his chair and looking at Emmanuel, he asked, "what do I owe you?"

Now it was Emmanuel's turn to shake his head. "You owe me nothing; I do not trade my abilities for monetary or material rewards."

Mackey took a sip of beer, thinking. _That wouldn't be the case,_ _if there was something hinky going on_. Out loud, all he could say was "thank you."

The first place Gabriel went was Bobby Singer's in South Dakota. When he got there and saw the house, he cursed. No way someone was still living there, given the house had been set on fire and destroyed. He honestly had to idea how to proceed; he couldn't locate the Winchesters, and he couldn't find Castiel, either. Bobby had been the next best thing; Gabriel knew he'd be able to get ahold of the idiots. If Bobby wasn't here, he had no idea where he could be; he'd never actually met the man. He scowled, pulling a lollipop out of his pocket and tossing the wrapper on the ground. Sucking on it, he eyed the house while trying to figure out what else to do. He couldn't call over Angel Radio; he didn't know if the other angels knew he was alive, but considering how things were going when he died, it'd be a safer bet to stay under the radar.

Which would be a lot easier to do without the human behind him pointing a gun.

"Who the hell are you?!" she demanded.

Gabriel turned, lifting an eyebrow at the petite woman behind him. She wore a police uniform, and her car was parked at the end of the drive; Gabriel couldn't believe he hadn't heard or sensed her presence.

"Who the hell are you?" he returned, rolling the stick of his lollipop in his fingers.

"I'm Sheriff Jody Mills. Why are you here?"

He had to give it to her; the human had spunk. Then again, she didn't know who he was.

"I'm looking for Bobby. I'm a... friend of the Winchester's. I've been MIA for awhile, and need to find them," he finally said. If she didn't know where Bobby or the idiots were, he'd just snap himself out of there. She could be useful. There was killing to do; he was still pissed he was brought back, and he knew it had to do with those morons. He had to find them.

Jody eyed him. "How do you know them?"

"Does it matter?" Gabriel growled. "I need to talk to them."

"Well, unless you tell me who and what you are, I won't tell you where the boys are. Bobby's dead."

"Shit!" Gabriel hissed, kicking at the dirt with the toe of a shoe. He scowled. "Where are the idiots?"

Jody's mouth twitched, before settling back into a firm line. She had noticed he didn't flinch when she asked _what_ he was. "You still haven't told me what you want with them, or who you are. Which means I don't have to tell you a damn thing."

This time, Gabriel smirked at her, bringing all his Trickster charm to the surface. "I'm Gabriel." 

Jody's eyes widened a fraction, before she took a step back and lowered her gun. "The archangel, also known as Loki, or the Trickster."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "I see my reputation precedes me. Been doing your homework."

"Yeah, well, the candy and the attitude would have clued me in, except your supposed to be dead." Jody threw out carelessly, holstering the pistol.

"Yes, I am. I have no idea why I was brought back, but if anyone knows it'll be those boys and Castiel, none of which I can locate. So where are they?"

Jody shrugged. "Cas is dead. Sam and Dean, I have no idea. Saving people somewhere? But I can get into contact with them. How do they contact _you_?"

"I'll find you in a week. It'll give me time to take care of other business." And with that, he snapped his fingers and disappeared.

Jody blew her bangs out of her face, shaking her head. "Now I understand why Dean hates him so much." Pulling her cell out of her pocket, she pulled up Dean's number and let it ring to voicemail. "Hey, Dean, I just ran into someone you know. Call me back, it's important." She snapped her phone shut, throwing one last glance at Bobby's place. "What the hell is going on, Bobby?"

"Hey, look at this," Sam said to his brother. Dean was lounging on his bed, flipping through channels on the tv. At Sam's words, he rolled off the bed and walked over to the table, leaning down over Sam's shoulder to check the screen.

"Is that him?"

"I think so," Sam responded. "Dr. Marcus Whitman. He and his wife, Narcissa Prentiss, were part of the first group to settle here back in 1836. Narcissa became a missionary in 1835, less than a year before marrying Marcus. They opened a missionary called the Protestant Whitman Mission to the Cayuse Indians, which became a stop on the Oregon Trail, had one child biologically when Narcissa was twenty-nine and adopted eleven others. The daughter, Alice, was the first Anglo-American born in the territory. She drowned in the Walla Walla River when she was two. Fourteen people, including Marcus, Narcissa and two of their adopted children, were killed during a raid of the Cayuse in 1847. Fifty-four women and children, including the remaining five Sager children Marcus and Narcissa adopted, were captured and held captive for a month. Only forty-nine of the people captured survived when the Cayuse released them; one of the Sager's died in captivity, leaving four girls. The youngest was killed at 26 in California, by an outlaw. No idea what happened to the other four children the Whitman's adopted. The hauntings started right after the massacre; a few of the survivors were killed by the Rifleman before they were released from Cayuse custody."

"Were you able to find a picture of him?" Dean asked, quickly reading the article about Marcus that Sam had found.

"Yeah, here. It's a sketch, not a photo. It's not great, but it gives us a description, at least." Sam pulled up the picture; it showed a man in his late twenties to early thirties, with slicked down hair and thick sideburns.

"Alright then," Dean said, straightening up and going to pull a beer out of the fridge. "Could you find out where he was buried?"

"No, unfortunately. If there are any records of his burial, they've been lost or the information hasn't been put online. I'll have to go to the library tomorrow and see what I can find out," Sam said, leaning back in his chair.

"Crap," Dean sighed. "That means we're stuck here for a couple of days."

"Yeah. I'm going to go grab lunch." Sam decided, standing and stretching before picking his jacket up and tugging it on.

"Okay. I'm gonna give the Sheriff a call back." Dean told him. As Sam walked out the door, Dean grabbed his cell and called Jody, who picked up after five rings. "Hey Sheriff, got your message."

"Dean! That was four days ago. What took you so long?"

"We're on a case, not having much luck. What's going on?"

"I ran into someone out at Bobby's. If he's who he says he is, you boys have told me about him. He didn't know about Castiel... or Bobby."

Dean swallowed, and took a gulp of beer. "Who'd he say he was?"

Jody hesitated. "This is going to sound crazy, but... he said he was Gabriel."

"Son of a bitch!"

"She's sure it was actually Gabriel?" pressed Sam, fiddling with his fork.

"Yup. Short, sweet tooth, bad attitude, pissed at us. It sounds like him, right down to the physical description," Dean responded.

Sam let out a breath in a loud sigh. "Great. Just what we need, a ticked off archangel."

"I hate to say it Sammy, but he might be useful. He did go up against Lucifer for us."

"Since when are you okay with him?" Sam demanded. Granted, Gabriel died for them; on the other hand, he'd also killed Dean a few dozen times just to teach Sam a lesson.

"Look man, he's a dick like all the other angels we've come up against. But if we can get him on board with helping us? It'll make our job a lot easier."

Sam just looked at Dean like _he_ was the crazy one and Sam was as normal as the waitress at the diner. "You do realize that means we'd have to trust him, and he doesn't have a great track record with that."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Right off the bat? Hell no, I'm not a moron. I get why he did what he did." Dean got up to throw empty beer bottles and lunch wrappers into the trashcan, rubbing a hand over his face before turning back to his brother. "Lucifer was his brother. Asking Gabriel to stand up to him, knowing it might get one or both of them killed? That's not a choice I ever want to have to make if it's you on the other side."

Sam fiddled with the edge of his legal pad, left out from when he'd been writing down notes on the Rifleman before lunch. Dean rarely decided they should trust someone; it was even rarer that person hung them up to dry. On the other hand, Sam had trusted a lot of people – Ruby included – and had been the one who got played every single time. Because of it, it was harder for someone to win Sam's trust than Dean's. Sam looked up at Dean, a hard expression on his face. "Fine, on one condition."

Dean nodded. Whatever it was, he could handle it. Sammy was the one asking. "What?"

"I don't have to deal with him. You pray to him or call him or whatever, and you deal with him when/if he shows up." Sam made sure not to break eye contact with his big brother; he needed Dean to know he was serious. Yeah, Gabriel had helped them out – once. He'd also been the enemy twice.

There were also things between Sam and Gabriel that Dean had no idea about, having been dead at the time, before they found out the Trickster was an archangel. Sam wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. He didn't let himself think about how Gabriel would react to the condition.

"Not a problem." Dean assured him.

"Oh – and you get to tell Cas." Sam said as he let the door slam behind him. He needed to get out of the room.

"Damnit."


End file.
